Money Transfer Industry Urged to Inter-connect at IAMTN Conference: Luup and Dhasatra Advocate an Open Mobile Money Transfer Ecosystem

DUBAI, UAE, March 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Mobile financial solutions provider Luup today outlined key success factors for building a seamless remittances ecosystem that includes challenging geographies such as Indonesia.

At the MTD conference held in Dubai by the IAMTN, the international trade association for the money transfer industry, Saqib Iqbal, Regional Director Asia Pacific for Luup, reinforced: "Users want cost-effective interconnected money transfer services that they can access from any provider, anytime, anywhere." He added: "Mobile technology enables such efficient services, yet they depend on co-operation and the building of payments gateways, seamless remittance interconnections and cash-out facilities."

Indonesia is a particularly challenging geography due to a largely unbanked population spread over hundreds of islands. The proliferation of mobile phones though makes it highly conducive to mobile enabling services. Seizing this opportunity to bring cost effective, real time remittance solutions to its customers, Dhasatra Indonesian Remittance, has joined Luup's expanding, open mobile money transfer ecosystem.

Luup will mobile enable the inbound remittance corridor to Indonesia for Dhasatra and the subsequent distribution into Dhasatra's extensive network in the country. Both banked and unbanked will be able to remit into bank accounts of 120 banks or cash out from bank and post office branches as well as telecom franchisees.

In 2010 alone inbound remittances to Indonesia amounted to around US$ 11Bn. The fast growing numbers of Indonesian migrants in the Middle East in particular are set to benefit from this increased convenience. The UAE, for example, ranks fourth globally with its sending volume to Indonesia and Luup already has an established payments gateway serving users in the Middle East. Luup's regional presence provides Dhasatra with access to more sending institutions and other key partners in the Luup ecosystem.

Nicolas R. Dharmawan, President Director of Dhasatra, joined Luup at the MDT conference in advocating seamless mobile money transfers and gave examples of business benefits his company is gaining: "Partnering with Luup brings more remittances volume and traffic to Dhasatra and ultimately increases revenue. We are also excited about opportunities we will be able to pursue in Indonesia for m-commerce and domestic mobile money transfers as the partnership evolves further."

The Money Transfer Dubai conference was held on the 29th March in Dubai and Luup demonstrated its solutions on its stand as well as speaking on the conference stream 'Business opportunities and Challenges'. For further details see http://www.iamtn.org

About Dhasatra Indonesian Remittance

Dhasatra Indonesian Remittance is the first Indonesian Remittance company that offers various services with its own system. Dhasatra Indonesian Remittance has direct connections to banks, the post office of Indonesia and telecoms companies. And through our comprehensive partners we can provide remittance services even to the most remote or rural areas in Indonesia.

About Luup

Luup offers banking-grade mobile payments and financial services solutions that solve customers' business challenges, giving access to new cost-saving and revenue-generating business models. Corporate and merchant banks can take advantage of the Luup Mobile Corporate Banking Solution; Retail banks can benefit from the Branchless Banking Solution; MTOs & exchange houses can innovate with the Remittance Solution. Luup has proven best-practice experience in developing, deploying and running mobile money managed services since 2002. These range from mobile cash or salary disbursements to remittances and corporate payments - all securely via the mobile handset.

Luup is creating an extensive payments gateway, enabling its customers to expand their own business reach with Luup's partners. The company devises strategies for financial institutions such as Deutsche Bank's Global Transaction Banking group and leading UAE bank, the National Bank of Abu Dhabi. Other partners include Oxigen Services in India, Dhasatra in Indonesia and ITC Ltd in Bangladesh. For additional information visit http://www.luup.com

Luup and the Luup logo are trade marks of the Luup Group of Companies. All other company or product names mentioned herein may be trade marks of their respective owners